Christmas Wish Lists

A friend asked what was on my ""Santa list", things I want for Christmas. My first response was that I didn't have a Santa list but upon more thought I decided there were things I'd like, things like world peace, an end to hunger, health care for all, a meaningful job for everyone who wants one. Those aren't in Santa's bag though.

There are things I'd like for myself too. I'd like to be in better physical condition, more like I was 18-24 months ago before I got off my regular diet and exercise routine. I'd like to have more people buy my prints which would result in me having more funds to pursue more photography.

The problem with all the above, not just the first group of wishes but the personal ones as well, is that they aren't things. They are conditions and conditions can't be given to you by anyone else. You have to create them for yourself or in the case of the first group contribute whatever you can to create them.

So my real Christmas wish is that we would all remember that the things we give and receive for the holiday, no matter which of the several holidays that fall around the winter solstice, are only symbols of our real desires for conditions that will only come about through our actions. Or as Gandhi said "Be the change you want to see in the world".

Happy Thanksgiving

I went out this morning and wandered around the yard in my shirtsleeves. We are having a mild day, overcast but quite pleasant. We were able stand only 5-6 feet from the bird feeders and talk to a woodpecker as he ate from the suet feeder. Diane wondered if he was the same one who rapped on the house this summer every time the feeders got low. The chickadees flitted about as if we weren't even there. They are so used to us that I can stand within an arms length and they will continue feeding.

Dinner about one. I have to go and work on today's project, a storm window for the kitchen window over the sink. I hope everyone has a great meal and much to be thankful for.

When I first began doing digital photography the available image browsers either didn't let you apply keywords to images or if it did they used a proprietary format that other software didn't recognize. Eventually software publishers realized that the numbers of photos being generated by digital photographers required more than just "looking through" an archive to find a particular photo. A standard format was created and cataloging software was born in place of mere 'image browsers'.

I have used Adobe's Lightroom since it was first offered but I had scanned and shot many photos prior to getting Lightroom so I am still playing 'catch up' on the process of adding searchable data to all my older images.

I'm up to spring of 2005 on my catalog organization project and am starting to run into folders of images that I had done some cataloging & organizing of on a random basis in the time since first getting Lightroom. I'm also playing with some older files making new 'creations'. Anyway here's one that I morphed from a 2005 photo that I shot and never did anything with at the time. I liked the cloud reflections on the water with the little lily pads and stump as counterpoint but the straight shot came off as too detailed, too much surface litter breaking up the cloud reflections, too cluttered. I simplified it in Photoshop and now it works IMO.

Convergence of Ingenuity?

That is what a friend called it when The Online Photographer blog referred its readers to the site of a photographer on the West coast who was making tondi (art speak for round, also sometimes called tondo) images that were similar in flavor to some work I had been doing (see my "Ways of Working " post on Nov. 7th). Now I encounter another example in the Newsletter of the Photographer's Formulary. This involves another 'thread' of work I have played with but haven't shown anyone previously, photos of car details (hood ornaments, radiator emblems, rear view mirrors, etc.) like the one above. Mostly it is old cars, they're so much more visually interesting than the new ones, but I have shot a number of new car details, mostly headlight and taillight images. The compound faceting of the reflectors and lenses is very abstract and interesting.

Convergence of ingenuity is when two or more people independently have the same or very similar idea at the same time. With all the people taking digital photos these days I'm sure it is happening a lot in photography.

Shredding Leaves and Ear Worms

In my last post I mentioned that I’d been chewing up leaves by running over them with the riding mower several times. There is one corner of the yard though where there are more trees, thus more leaves and the mower ended up plowing them instead of mowing them.

I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus' garden in the shade

So I had to rake them and run them through the shredder. I’ve been at it for two afternoons and this morning.

He'd let us in, knows where we've been
In his octopus' garden in the shade

So I’m picking up bunches of leaves, with hearing protectors blocking out everything except the now muffled roar of the shredder and a song that keeps running through my head in an endless loop.

We would be warm below the storm
In our little hideaway beneath the waves

I did listen to that album on a few days before...

Resting our head on the sea bed
In an octopus' garden near a cave

But I’ve no idea why this song is the one that shredding leaves brings to mind.

We would sing and dance around
because we know we can't be found

I don’t hear it in my head the rest of the day, but this morning after I woke up...

We would shout and swim about
The coral that lies beneath the waves

As soon as I thought about finishing the leaf shredding job, it popped back into my brain

We would be so happy you and me
No one there to tell us what to do

My timing was great. I finished the pile I’d raked just as it started to rain. There are more leaves around the edge of the yard that I should rake and shred though. I wonder if the song will be back when I do.

I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus' garden with you.

We'll see in a couple of days when I start on another batch of shredding.

*excerpts from Octopus's Garden by the Beatles

Fall Chores

I spent part of the afternoon chewing up leaves, yum, yum. We have 30 plus maple trees around the perimeter of our one acre and they drop a humongous amount of leaves each fall. I used to rake them all and pile them in the back yard to compost but the supply of compose out stripped my need and after we got a riding mower (our son noted that happened after he left home) I decided to just mow over the fallen leaves several times and chew them into little bits that would decompose almost immediately into the lawn. That works pretty well if the weather cooperates and this year it is being very cooperative. It was cooler today than the last few days but it was still in the mid-40ºs and dry which is the more important part.

In the process of my chore I noted a couple of photo possibilities, the latter of which is represented here. It is a cedar tree which fell in the backyard directly toward the house but it wasn't quite tall enough to hit the house. The bark is coming off and there are some very neat insect burrow patterns underneath. They remind me of tribal tattoos I've seen in photos of some aboriginal people. Markings of the Cedar tribe perhaps?

Summer is Back

It was a very mild today for this time of year. The temperature was in the high 60ºs which is as warm as most days were this summer. I'd wager that I could count the days it was warmer than that on my fingers and toes. I could count the days we had over 80º on my fingers, possibly on the fingers of one hand. After breakfast Diane said it was too nice a day to stay inside and suggested we take a walk on the Stone Valley Trail in Colton. I agreed and took my camera of course.

On the way down the gravel road to the trail we met a couple on horseback who were enjoying the weather. Later, along the trail I saw the shape of the rock shoreline from the trail above the river and thought it might make an interesting photo so I went down to the shore. When I got down closer ...bonus... from the lower angle there was this great reflection of a pair of cedars growing among the rocks in mid-river.

We got home in time for lunch then I chewed up leaves in the yard with the riding mower. Mowing over them beats raking them any day. I have more leaves to do but the warm weather (not quite as warm as today) is expected to last for the next 6-7 days.

Follow-up on Yesterday

I watch several other blogs and this morning Chris Orwig posted an interview with Jay Maisel who is one of my role models. I've never met him in person. I first encountered Jay via a series of videos that Epson put out and I run onto interviews and his photos from time to time. I admire several photographers for different reasons. Jay's great quality is his attitude toward photographing and his ability to communicate his joie de vivre. The audio interview at jay maisel / interview is a must listen.

Ways of Working

Today's post is in response to an article in the NY Times which an e-friend sent the link to.

In thinking about the approaches to shooting that the article describes I'm somewhere in the middle between shooting hundreds of photos and editing out all but what he calls "happy accidents" or carefully considering each shot. In my opinion those who carefully consider each shot before tripping the shutter miss a lot of opportunities by pondering too long unless they are shooting in a studio and controlling every detail. OTOH shooting like crazy and trusting that luck will yield something worthwhile is not creativity (IMO) any more than winning the occasional $10-20 LOTTO prize is wise investing. I would add that the jackpots are about as frequent in either.

I began my life in photography as a photojournalist. I was taught to shoot the first view that grabbed me and then 'explore' the subject for other ways of seeing it. It is a strategy that I use to this day. If in doubt, I will take the photo and decide later whether it is good but the best shots usually come from 'communing' with the subject.

Today's photo is part of a series of photos of river foam. The foam forms naturally, often in eddys below waterfalls or rapids. I like capturing the patterns. It is an exercise much like the childhood pastime of finding shapes in the clouds.

Yesterday & Today

Yesterday after replacing some worn tiles on the kitchen floor I went off to find some more at Lowes. Unfortunately I didn't take a piece of one of the old tiles and 'mis-remembered' the color so the ones I picked up are too dark and I have to return them. While there I bought a new storm door for the kitchen entrance. The door we have is a recycled one that I picked up at a local lawn sale more years ago than I can remember. It is in rough shape both from being caught in the wind more than once and from being kicked open as I was carrying Ace out to take him to the vet the day he died.

Today and/or tomorrow I have to play carpenter and install the new one. It's not as simple as taking off the old one and putting in the new one (is anything ever that simple?) because some of the door casing, which dates back to 1876 when the building was constructed, needs repair too. We also have to "kill a buffalo" today which is how Diane refers to our monthly restocking of the pantry when my pension check comes. A busy day ahead.

Fall Winding Down

Our leaves are mostly down now. I've mowed over the ones in the yard once to chew them up but I'll have to do it again if the rain only stops long enough for things to dry out. With the passing of the autumn color my photo excursions are fewer until we start getting some snow. There's still subject matter available but fewer things look their best in the period between the leaves falling and the start of winter.

I have spent the last few days on a Christmas project which I can't divulge in the blog because the intended recipients are among my regular readers, at least I hope they are.

The photo here is a plant that I got from a friend's garden several years back. It didn't come up at all the 1st year after I transplanted it and I thought I had lost it. I did lose the other transplant (a different flower) that I got from Siew Hwee but this one did come up the 2nd year after I transplanted it. It comes up rather late in August and doesn't bloom until September. It seems to be quite hardy and early frosts do not affect the blooms which continue until the temperatures dip to about 20ºF. Unfortunately I don't know its name but it poses for me very nicely when most other flowers have gone by.

Addendum: I also posted this photo to the forums on Nature Photographer's Network and David Schwaegler ID'd it as a Japanese Anemone.

Last Lean-to Hike?

I participate in an ADK program where you can adopt a lean-to (that's a shelter for my Southern friends) doing clean up and routine maintenance at least twice a year. Yesterday I did my last lean-to maintenance hike of the season, perhaps the last of all. I'm thinking strongly of retiring from the adopter's program. I turn 65 next month. I had thought I'd do it for 20 years but a look at my records shows that I'm only at 17 as of now. Do I want to do this for 3 more years? I still enjoy the outings when I do them but I seem to find it harder to motivate myself to do them. There are just too many things to be done and I didn't get in all the hikes to other places that I planned for this year. The adoption papers for next year will arrive in November. I'll see how I feel then.

The top photo is looking across Heart Lake as I hiked in from Adirondack Loj. The leaves are mostly down but there was a very nice band of soft orange on the slope in the middle ground and some neat cloud wisps kissing the summit of Algonquin. Those reflections on the lake didn't hurt the view any either. The photo below is "my" lean-to, the Scott Clearing lean-to. I'm standing on rocks in the stream (Indian Pass Brook) which is just below the bottom of the photo's frame. The lean-to isn't actually at Scott Clearing which is about a 10 minute walk upstream. The clearing is an old lumbering camp from the 1800s and there are the remains of the rock dam that the lumbermen built there along with some rusting metal parts of an old cook-stove, barrel rings, etc.

A New Adirondack Photo Book

There is a new Adirondack photo book on the scene. I have to start this with a disclaimer because the author, Jim Kraus is friend, we have been out photographing together, he gave me credit in the book for technical assistance and in the back he used a casual portrait that I took of him. He also gave me a copy of the book. That said it is an excellent book of Adirondack photographs. I do have to get on his case about the waterfall on page 82 though. He never told me about that one when we were out scouting places to photograph.

Jim spent 30 years teaching recreational forestry at Paul Smiths College. During his time teaching he took many of the photos in this book to create educational slide shows. He has continued to photograph in retirement. He has lived most of his life in the Adirondacks and has a real love of the place which shows in his images. This is a great book for a quiet evening's contemplation of one of (in my opinion) the most beautiful places on the Earth. I just checked and it is in stock at Amazon and Barnes & Noble so what are you waiting for?

P.S. Disclaimer: The government is getting on the case of bloggers who endorse or favorably review things so in the interest of full disclosure, I have no connection to either Amazon or Barnes & Noble nor do I benefit from any purchase you make there. I do buy stuff from Amazon though.

P.S. to the P.S.: I meant to mention that at least two of the photos appear to have been taken from or of the author's front porch. One you can probably guess. The other might surprise you.

All That Is Autumn Is Not Bright Color

Now

This scene is along the road from Santa Clara to Rt. 30. When I first photographed this location it was under water and the trees which are now fallen were drowning in a beaver pond. I was shooting with film back then. At the time I was attracted to the strange colors that the needles were turning as the trees died (see below and yes, those were the real colors, not Photoshop colors). Either the D.E.C. or nature removed the beavers and their dam. The pond has dried up. Now there is meadow of browns and greys with counterpoints of blackening stumps and fallen trees. I liked the soft waves of the grass amongst the dead trees.

Then